So our actual holiday (still heavily loaded with learning for 11+ and running training) was a trip to Boston to my wife's parents' home and a trip to New York on a rather fancy black bus (pictured below - big up LimoLiner you were really cool)

The heat was great and hitting temperatures of 30 degrees Celcius regularly - this made for early morning runs only and well planned training. The family home is in an area where it's very hilly and there's lots of forest, so mosquito bites are common and tons of spraying is needed if you are anywhere outside. Training gets you sweaty and mossies love sweat so we had to be vigilant. I got a couple of good 10k runs in around the Hopkinton neighbourhood and in Boston Common before we went to New York and was hell bent on running a half marathon in Central Park, New York. We hired a bike for my daughter and started the run in the rain hoping that Apples weather forecasting was gonna be accurate and we would finish it in dry warm air - which we did. The park is not remotely flat and has lots of interesting features making for a really good run but I had mad neck pains at the start of the run which miraculously disappeared during the run - running is therapeutic!! Obviously whilst in New York we did tons of sightseeing and visited many places like the Hard Rock Cafe, Harlem Gospel Choir (dinner) and Stardust (where upcoming actors sing to you whilst serving food) but nothing quite compared to standing in peacefulness of the Ground Zero site and seeing the massive sink hole water features made to remember 9/11. Just amazing and really pleased we visited this area and the museum there too.